Cascade Effect
by thesilversun
Summary: Fix-it AU. Tosh is the one who goes to the Turnmill nuclear facility at the end of series 2 instead of Owen.


**Title** Cascade Effect  
**Rating** G  
**Characters** Tosh, Gwen. Rest of team mentioned.  
**Word count** 1015 (yes, it was supposed to be comment fic.)  
**A/N** Written for lawsontl for the prompt 'Toshiko is the one that goes to the nuclear power plant. What changes?' over for the Women of Torchwood fest over on the Livejournal community tw_classic

* * *

It had been an easy decision to make, there really was only one of them that had a chance of halting a nuclear meltdown, and after a hurried goodbye to Ianto and Owen, she'd made her way across the city to the Turnmill nuclear facility.

The workers are already flooding out of the reactor building by the time Tosh arrives, sirens blaring loud across the whole site. It doesn't take much to convince them that letting her help, especially once she's mentioned Torchwood.

It's a good thing too, Tosh decides, as she makes her way through the corridors towards the main control room, as she really doesn't have the time to explain just why not letting her help would be the worse, and quite possibly the last, idea that they would have.

The central control console is already struggling maintain the reactor core's integrity, as she scans the schematics, finger tracing the circuits as she tries to find a way of bypassing the failing systems.

"Idiots," Tosh says to herself, as she notes that the cooling system design means that the central control room is likely to flood with super heated radioactive steam even if she brings the reaction under control.

It does give her a different course of action though. There has to be a secondary control room, somewhere the staff can work from to bring the systems back under control once the steam has been vented in to the primary one.

Hurrying through the corridors, Tosh sees a Hoix scuttle back in to the shadows, the creature aware on some basic level that she is its and Cardiff's best hope of survival right now.

The systems in the back up control room aren't functioning any better than the ones in the primary one, although at leasts there's no longer the risk of being boiled in radioactive steam to content with.  
A quick inspection reveals that it's the program controlling the cold water intake for the reactor that's at fault.

There's not enough time for a full system restart, and Tosh knows that most people would be getting out of there, sure that there's nothing left they can do.

But, Tosh thinks, taking the Rift energy scanner that has been in her coat pocket since the warehouse had exploded around them, most people haven't been working with alien tech for years.  
She looks at it for a moment then cracks the back of it open on the edge of the table. It takes just seconds for her to identify the parts she needs and to pulls the connecting wires free.

Taking a deep breath, and trying to ignore the fact that the painkillers Owen had given her for her arm are starting to wear off, Tosh crouches down, getting into the narrow space beneath the control consoles.

Pulling her sleeve down over her hand, she starts to pull free some of the wires. Sparks fly, but she pays no attention to them.

Above her the lights on the display panel all turn red, sirens blaring almost deafeningly loud through the building as the automatic tannoy system repeats the message to all staff to evacuate the building in a calm and speedy manner.

It's expected though, and she doesn't pause in pulling out more wires. Everything now is time critical down to the last second.

Taking the loose wires from the scanner and from the control panel, Tosh twists them together. For a moment nothing happens, then the display on the scanner comes on.

With no time to lose, Tosh inputs the commands necessary to vent some of the steam into the main control room to relieve the pressure and then to flood the core with water before it has chance to re-pressurize.

Seconds later one green light blinks on and then another until the whole display above the console is filled with them. Gauges show that the pressure levels are starting to equalise, and the core temperature readings begin to drop.

Crisis averted. With a relieved, exhausted sigh, Tosh crawls back out from under the consoles. It's moments like this that make working for Torchwood worth it, that help to cancel out those times where it all goes to shit and she wonders why they keep going.

Only once the lights have remain as a steady green glow for several minutes does Tosh reach for her bluetooth comm.

"If anyone's there the situation at Turnmill is under control. I'll hand the systems back over to the staff as soon as I'm sure there's no danger of them going critical again."

The comm. unit remains silent, and after a moment Tosh says, "Is anyone still there?"

"Hey, sorry about that," Gwen answers, sounding out of breath. "Everything is still a bit mad here."

There's a yell of pain in background, followed by some indistinct swearing and Tosh's heart sinks. "Everyone is alright, aren't they?"

"Mostly," Gwen says wearily. "That was Owen trying to sort out Ianto's shoulder. He nearly popped it out again tackling Gray, after he shot Owen."

Although Tosh hates the idea of any of them getting shot, she has to admit she's relieved that of all of them Gray had chosen Owen, the one person who it wouldn't kill or even hurt.

"Jack's in a bit of a state, he's holed up in his office," Gwen continues. "He had to shoot Gray, to stop him from blowing up the Hub. And Hart pissed off as soon as Gray was dead."

Sighing, Tosh closes her eyes. They might have won, but she doubts anybody will be celebrating.

"Do you want me to come and get you?" Gwen offers. "You sound as tired as I feel."

Tosh can hear the sound of the staff returning, and the systems seem to be working well enough now that they should be able to manage. So she replies, "Yes, please."

All in all though, Tosh thinks, as she settles down to wait for Gwen to give her a lift back to the Hub, things could have been a lot worse.


End file.
